Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Best song: The Boxer

Worst song: Bye Bye Love

Overall grade: 6

Simon & Garfunkel’s swansong just crept over the decade-end line, and I guess the people who picked up a copy at the time thought that the seventies could be just as much their decade (if not more so) than the sixties had been. But in actual fact the duo were in crisis. Both wanted to pursue different directions, and they’d had enough trouble agreeing on the track selection for this album to be able to face recording another one. Mere months after ‘Bridge’ climbed the charts, the split was officially announced – although in those early years they reunited to play concerts more often than some bands who were officially still together.

Whether intentional or not, two songs really dominate this record and they each open a side. The first is ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ itself, a pure and beautiful melody with Garfunkel’s vocals sailing effortlessly through the music, and a truly uplifting five minutes. But if you thought that couldn’t be topped, wait until you get to ‘The Boxer’, a song that completely involves you in its world. The confessional tone of the verses sits right next to a chorus where no words are necessary and where the simple refrain of ‘lie-la-lie’ carries us through to the next section, or, the final time, to the incredibly satisfying conclusion of the song. But my absolute favourite part is the instrumental break between the second verse and chorus, created with the unique combination of a piccolo trumpet and a pedal steel guitar. If you like the song (if?!) you should check out the version on ‘The Concert in Central Park’ which has a whole extra verse added that was, for unknown reasons, left off the original.

I do find the friendship between these two men fascinating, and some of these songs present conflicting views. Although the title track is an authentic, unconditional ode to a friendship, other equally powerful tracks written by Simon show him pulling away from this friendship. The songs I’m talking about are ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’ and perhaps even more, ‘So Long Frank Lloyd Wright’. The legend goes that Garfunkel had no idea they were being written about him, so while you can hear the pain and emotion through the vocals on ‘Only Living Boy’, on ‘So Long’ they seem blissfully unaware; which is possibly even more depressing.

Much like ‘Bookends’, this album mixes its meaningful ballads with lively folk-pop, only instead of a side being devoted to each, here the two styles are allowed to mingle. Of these, I get particularly excited about the almost Beach Boys-esque ‘Baby Driver’ and the rhythmic drum-centric ‘Cecelia’, while ‘Keep the Customer Satisfied’ and ‘Why Don’t You Write Me’ are less memorable, but let’s face it: this is a style of song that Simon has long since mastered, and so there aren’t any real writing missteps. Although I can’t guarantee this would be the case if either the Bach reinterpretation or the extremely political song about the Cuban government had made their way onto the album (one member wanted each song while the other resisted: there’s a prize for guessing which was which without cheating).

Here we can also see the earliest influences of Paul Simon branching out and incorporating musical influences from other cultures, as ‘El Condor Pasa’ was a reworking of a Peruvian folk tune; and a group, Los Incas, from Peru, actually accompany the pair playing instruments from their own country. Although I like the song, it doesn’t have the same impact as most of what surrounds it.

One of the few things that brings this album down is the fact that this many albums in, the duo still thought it was necessary to include a cover version: the Everly Brothers’ ‘Bye Bye Love’. It’s a pretty good song, but coming near the end of the album after so much personal writing and material that’s decidedly ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ in approach, this cover sticks out from the rest of the work, not helped by the fact that it was taken from a live show and so is recorded and produced differently to everything else.

The final track, ‘Song For The Asking’, took me a long time to appreciate. After so many veritable anthems, this tiny runt of a song was how they chose to leave their career? But at some point it started to make sense. It showcases everything the pair does well, stripped down to its simplest for; no trimmings, and it’s completely timeless. It could have been the band at any stage of their career and it will never sound dated. At one minute, forty-nine seconds, it summarises five whole albums.

Both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel went on to have long solo careers, of which Paul Simon’s was by far the more significant due to the fact that he was actually a writer as well as a singer. In fact, he did so much of the writing on the band albums that you’d expect his solo work to be just as good – but there was a certain magic he and Garfunkel had that just couldn’t be achieved again.